Netflix's Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus Movie Review

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By Matthew Dougherty

Updated: 21 Aug 2019 10:04 pm

Posted: 16 Aug 2019 4:00 pm

Back in 2002, Jhonen Vasquez’s dark sci-fi comedy Invader Zim was cancelled just 27 episodes into its run. And yet, over the past (almost) two decades, its cultural status has ballooned into something comparable to many other beloved Nicktoons with much longer lives, like Rugrats, Hey Arnold!, Spongebob Squarepants, and Rocko’s Modern Life (which got its own terrific revival special just last week). In 2019, a property cancelled too soon is ripe for revival.

Enter the Florpus is largely akin to what Serenity did with Firefly, taking the basic crux of its sci-fi story and hurrying it along to what feels like the ultimate climax, stuffed with lots of action and big character moments. At times, that makes for an immensely fun watch, but like Joss Whedon’s big-screen conclusion to his own cult classic, it moves a little too hastily for how much it tries to cram in. Naturally, it likely would have been more satisfying had the plot of this 71-minute movie played out over the course of a season of television.

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The story picks up with some time having passed since Zim (still voiced with the most gusto by Richard Steven Horvitz) and Dib (Andy Berman) last crossed paths. That, however, turns out to be part of Zim’s plan, as Dib has grown into a grotesque basement-dweller, animated with all kinds of bodily grossness oozing out of his visible orifices.

More than 15 years later, Invader Zim’s signature animation is still its greatest strength. From small, disturbing details to the operatic perspectives as various characters’ plans come to fruition, this story continues to find life in how it’s drawn, exaggerating and pulling back in all the precise areas it needs to make an extreme visual impact.

Extreme has always been a good word to describe this series, as it largely found comedy in juxtaposing Zim’s lofty apocalyptic ambitions with the banality of his overall life on Earth. For its first half, Enter the Florpus makes good on that premise. Of course, Zim and Dib in some way have to cordially come together after all this time. The symbiotic nature of their adversarial relationship is what drives the show, after all. Here, it’s a feeling of not being understood that does the trick. Just as Zim’s alien lords think him small and incapable, Dib’s scientist father is dismissive of just about every idea his highly intelligent, albeit eccentric son expresses. Invader Zim has always had the outcasts on its mind, and that theme is explored well here as both of its leads search for meaning while on a journey they believe they’re taking alone.

Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus Photos

Then, the second half of the movie dives headfirst into series finale territory. What’s most appealing about this is we get to see Zim the closest he’s ever gotten to achieving a full-blown victory in his quest to take over and enslave the Earth. It’s exciting to see the series’ mythology essentially culminate, especially as Dib fights to save the Earth while having to resolve his family issues.

All this heavy talk, however, doesn't alter the fact that Enter the Florpus is as funny as the show ever was, without any real change to the types of jokes it’s telling (though clever references to Apple keynotes, and how they serve the plot, are an amusing minor advancement). There’s still a lot of over-the-top physical comedy, highly exaggerated facial expressions, and, thankfully, GIR (Rosearik Rikki Simons) doing what GIR does best.

The comedy does slow down a bit as the fate of the world comes into play, and that’s where the movie runs into a bit of trouble. By rushing into the climactic showdown that’s been brewing since the series premiered in 2001, the epic tone feels out of place in some moments of the finale.

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It doesn’t help that, by the time it’s all over, the show pretty much resets itself so that, were Vasquez or another writer interested, Invader Zim could continue without really skipping a beat. Enter the Florpus didn’t need to be a grand conclusion to the series, but it’s also a movie that wants to have genuine stakes, and then all but erases them in its final few moments.

But even so, a lot of what made Invader Zim a cult classic is on full display throughout this mini-movie. While it’s not as thoughtful as Rocko’s Modern Life: Static Cling, it is the essence of Invader Zim. Considering fans got the short end of the stick when the show was cancelled in 2002, it’s hard to argue that this movie needed to really be anything else.

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Verdict

There are quibbles to be had with Enter the Florpus’ story, which acts more like a series finale right up until its final moments, but overall, this is a fun dive back into a cult classic that retains just about everything that made the show great to begin with. The sci-fi elements are fun, the humor is wildly absurd, and the animation is breathtaking. In this case, that’s enough for this return to be worth the wait.